Moving on

Read Genesis 12:1-5

1 The LORD had said to Abram,”Leave your native country,your relatives,and your father’s family,and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous,and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”

4 So Abram departed as the LORD had instructed,and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. 5 He took his wife,Sarai,his nephew Lot,and all his wealth-his livestock and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran-and headed for the land of Canaan. (NLT)

It all seems so simple. A man obeys God and life changes,history changes. Yet it would not have been that simple. How did this moon worshipper from the backblocks of Ur hear from God in the first place? How did he sense this was a good move and not just a sudden impulse driven by a desire to see more of the world?

We know Abram lived a semi-nomadic life and the notion of moving would not have been foreign to him. It was not as if he had a mortgage to pay or kids to keep in private schools. Even so,going such a distance and at such a prompting required some confidence in what he was doing. This was not just the meanderings of a nomad: this was the movement of a man who had somehow heard from God.

This same God can invite us to leave our native country,though not always geographically. He may invite us to sample a new season,perhaps in a new place. The invitation might come by some indefinable inner prompting. It might come through God-ordered conversations. It might come through a job offer,a birth,a death,or some rearranging of life circumstances. However it comes,it will be unsettling and yet compelling.

God calls us to do two basic things. One is to be faithful just where we are. The other is to be ready to move on.

Blessings
David Reay